Darkness is My Light

Chapter 6

Hermione left the room and headed back towards the staircase which she had earlier ascended. When she reached the hall, she looked back at the room which held Narcissa's garden just a little forlornly. Unsurprisingly, the music had simply stopped when she had left the room and firmly shut the door.

She descended the staircases until she reached the main floor again. The window was still opened, which for some reason surprised her, letting the ever-fleeting sunlight filter in. She stopped for a moment to look out at the English countryside. And, as she was used to, she noticed that a light rain had begun to fall to the ground. Depressing, to say the least.

She turned as the clock chimed four in the afternoon. So late already? She wandered back to the library to the sound of the rain hitting the window. When she got there, she saw a young man of about fourteen or fifteen. His hair, blue and red, was a perfect beacon of his arrogant teenage ways.

His finger grazed the spines of all the books he passed along the far wall. His somewhat out-of-place snobbish manner seemed to radiate from his stiff posture. He stopped abruptly and turned towards her. "It's rude to stare," he said intensely, disgust creeping into his voice, but still quietly enough to not yell.

She just stood there. He continued to stare back at her, and she almost expected energy to crackle and spill forth from his dull grey eyes. They did not remain like this for very long, however. Soon the object of Hermione's earlier search entered the giant room. Hermione broke eye contact with the boy to watch Draco, who did not register her presence outwardly.

He walked over to the boy at the bookshelf, who put up fists to fight. Draco ignored the boy and simply walked through him. The boy lost all will at this point and dropped his arms. A hand grabbed his, which soon became connected to a girl who, Hermione swore, had appeared out of the air. The two took their leave through the far door, feet never touching the ground.

Hermione waited until the ghosts were gone to look at Draco again. He was already looking at her. "We need to talk." She left no room for arguments.

"I agree." Whatever she had expected, it wasn't that. "Although the library is not my idea of private in this house, but if you insist..." He made for a chair.

"I don't mind the where, as long as it is now. I have been looking for you for a long time now."

"Oh? I didn't realize I was that special." Cocky. He began towards the east door, expecting her to follow.

"You're not, let me assure you. Although, my search was not fruitless. Your mother is a lovely woman. Bit odd, though. Still lovely." She expected this to shock him, but he simply continued gracefully through the corridor. He always had been very good at keeping his secrets close.

They continued silently through the hallway and Hermione slowed every so often to look at the décor. "I would not linger here if I were you," Draco warned casually. She made to ask why as she tried to catch up to his fast stride, but soon lost reason to. She gasped; blood was slowly flowing from the cracks in the ceiling down the walls. "That happens from time to time," he explained nonchalantly. "My mother refuses to leave the north wing of the house, with good reason. The blood is just plain terrible to remove from clothing."

At that comment, Hermione, unconsciously, grabbed at the fabric so that the hem of her skirt was at least a few inches off the floor. She kept close to Draco who seemed to have forgotten about the blood that was coming towards him. "Why does this just 'happen from time to time?'" she inquired.

"Well, just like death never truly goes away, the blood of innocents does not either."

"And just how many innocents have died here? There seems to be enough ghosts and blood here as it is."

"Truthfully? I have no idea. Hundreds, I would say, yet that number seems a bit low...My father would roll over in his grave - if he had one," he added to himself, "if I did not honor his 'great work,' as he called it."

"Was he insane?" Hermione wasn't sure where the question had come from or what had possessed her to ask it.

"Insane? Well, yes. But he was mad, too. And there is a huge difference."

"I fail to see it."

"Insanity is repeating the same thing time after time and expecting new results. An insane person has the ambitions, but no way of meeting them. A madman, on the other hand, is cunning and devious. Though he is not always sure of what to do or what his motives may be, he knows exactly how to meet others' ends. Combine these, and you have a most terrifying creature indeed. People would call him a monster. I just called him 'father'."

Hermione realized that in each moment of superior knowledge that her once hated schoolmate shared, he was also allowing her a deeper look into his life.

He stopped with no notice, and Hermione had to keep great balance to avoid falling on him. That was how all of this started after all, and she wanted some things answered before they *started* anything else. He opened a door to their left, which led off into another short hallway. The end of the hallway opened up into a rather large room with several windows from floor to ceiling. But what caught Hermione's attention most was the room's occupants.

There were thousands of ghosts talking amongst themselves. One of them spotted the two standing in the doorway and let up a yell. "Oh, so the old solid one is back! Came for more, young master?" Several others joined in the friendly bantering.

A young woman in her early twenties, or who *had* been in her early twenties anyway, came up and grabbed for Hermione's hand. "Nice to meet you at last, young lady. We were waiting for a new one for years now! Thought the master had lost it all after the last one."

"That is quite enough, Melissa," Draco said to the ghost, "she is not 'the next one,' so why don't you torment someone else?"

"I'm hurt, Draco. You know I don't torture just *anyone*!" she broke into gales of high-pitched laughter as she flew to the other end of the hall. Many ghosts met her in the air to ask about the girl with Draco. "Not the next one, he says! He lies! He lies!" she began chanting with many other young dead women joining her.

Still, amidst their teasing, Hermione got the sense that they truly cared for Draco, and vice versa. The ghosts respectfully parted for them to walk by. Several men asked her name, to which she gave them. They began to tell everyone they saw of the young Hermione Granger and her marvelous voice and smile. Murmurs of the two covered the hall. "How lucky he must be; how lucky is she," many of the older ghosts exclaimed quietly.

"Is this your idea of privacy?" Hermione whispered angrily at Draco. He did not answer her. Instead her led her to the far wall and opened a door for her. She stepped through cautiously to find herself on a small patio lined with marble. There were two chairs made of a fine gold finish and a table of silver. The rain was long gone, and the overhang still dripped from the showers. He offered her a seat and took the other.

"We do need to talk, don't we?"

"Yes, Malfoy, we do."

"Well, start by calling me Draco if you will, Hermione; I have long since grown out of impersonalizing people."

"Alright, *Draco*, let's talk," she said with a bit more force than she had meant.

"OK, where would you like to start?" Hermione honestly had no idea, so she simply sat there. And all was silent.

~*~